Do You Like Bees?
by Stardustjinn
Summary: TFP. Ratchet needs a break from his Synth-En project, so Bumblebee takes it upon himself to make it happen. The Team is amused, Ratchet is not, and Bumblebee pays with a scratched paint and a dent. Oneshot. Rated because... well, we've got an angry Ratchet.


_Because Raf's hacking skills couldn't have improved much if he was only learning from someone who didn't care much for human technology. Title is a shout-out to a YouTube celebrity known as Yogscast._

**_Disclaimer : I own none of these characters._**

_Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against challenges. So relax._ _-Bryant McGill_

* * *

"Bulkhead! Miko! Lower the volume before I have you both on inventory so you would stop causing a racket!"

The big bot being yelled at cringed, but his tiny human friend was braver – or more stupid.

"We are not causing a racket. We're just watching TV!" Miko protested, not taking her eyes off the TV.

"Of a _blood sport_, cheering and screaming–"

"It's a monster car rally, Ratchet. It's _supposed_ to be loud!" She checked the volume. "And if we lower the volume any more, we won't be able to hear a – hey!"

Miko shot an incendiary glare at the Autobot behind her who had turned off the TV. Unfortunately for her, Bulkhead had decided to take his chances against his plucky human partner than a recharge-deprived medic whose fist was currently wrapped around an Autobot-sized wrench. Never mind that Ratchet's current project didn't really require tools like wrench, it was more of a silent threat than anything. Bulkhead had long since learned from experience that being deprived of a week worth of recharge would do nothing to lessen Ratchet's aim. If anything it tended to make the throw more vicious, leaving deeper dents and setting off more pain receptors. Scooping up the pouting girl, Bulkhead hastily escaped their Chief Medical Officer's throw range.

"Come on, Miko, let's give Ratchet some peace and quiet," he mumbled. "We can go find 'Bee and Raf, see what they're up to."

Miko continued to scowl, but she deflated soon enough.

"Fine. Maybe we could get Raf to drop his schoolwork for a while and play some games."

It did not take the pair long to reach the yellow scout's sleeping quarters. The Autobot Outpost Omega-1 was not a big base by Cybertronian standards, but it was enough to accommodate all their needs. It had a main control room, connected with Ratchet's med bay that doubled as his laboratory, a small training room, a couple of storage rooms, and six quarters that were just big enough for one bot. Nobody complained about the tight space. They were all glad to have a base at all, much less one with each their own quarters. Upon reaching the door at the far end of the corridor, Bulkhead lifted his fist. Before he could knock, however, the door slid open to accept them.

Bumblebee whistled playfully, inviting them to come in. He was sitting on the floor, his interfacial cord hooked up to an earth-based desk top computer set. Where he had acquired such item was a mystery nobody was sure they wanted answered. Raf was sitting cross-legged across the yellow bot with his own laptop opened in front of him. The two computers were connected to a third monitor, showing both computers' progress. All three monitors had several different windows filled with programming codes and equations scrolling down as the programs were kept running. The desktop which Bumblebee was hooked up to occasionally flashed with Cybertronian glyphs. The aluminum mesh-work mattress that acted as his berth was raised against the wall to make room for their activity.

"What are you doing?" Miko asked, screwing her face. The symbols and letters on all the screens were making her head hurt.

"Uh, 'Bee is helping me with my, uh, school work. Computer programming." Raf replied uncertainly, glancing at his partner. Bumblebee nodded with the most innocent look that might have been convincing if not for Raf's stiff tone.

Miko raised her eyebrow. "So it's just a school work," she said.

"Er... yes?" It sounded less like a confirmation and more like a question.

Miko stared, unimpressed.

After a minute of awkward silence, Bumblebee vented exasperatedly. He rolled his optics and bleeped.

_"Just tell them, Raf."_

Raf hung his head.

"I should work on my lying skills rather than hacking ones," he muttered, causing his guardian to laugh. "We were, uh, experimenting on some new programming technique. Find a new method of hacking, coding and stuff. Cybertronian ways of coding is much more efficient than ours, but 'Bee thinks our Earth ways are more..." He glanced at the bot, who bleeped. "_Creative. _Unpredictable, in a way. We wanted to see if it's possible to combine those advantages. We thought it'd be useful when I try to remotely hack into the Nemesis' mainframe without leaving obvious traces."

"That's a great idea!" Bulkhead exclaimed.

"Bumblebee knows how to hack? I thought that was Ratchet's thing?" Miko asked with a surprised look towards the Autobot.

Bumblebee made an indignant sound, puffing out his armour and looking offended. _"Of course I can, I learned from the best!"_

Bulkhead chuckled. "Bots like 'Bee and Arcee, scouts and infiltrator units, are all trained to hack. Be it a control terminal or other b–," he paused when the yellow and black emitted a warning click. "Er, communications network. Yeah..."

He cleared his vents and sat down as well. "Ratchet can write programs," he continued, "and Optimus can decode encrypted messages like no one's business, but 'Bee is the only one who bothered to learn _human_ coding." The Wrecker patted on the scout's shoulder affectionately.

_"Don't tell them."_ Bumblebee warned playfully. _"I don't want to explain to Optimus what I did to learn human's coding language – he won't like it._ _And Ratchet will reformat me into a vending machine if he learns how I really_ _caught that virus on our second week here on Earth."_

The Wrecker guffawed while Raf translated the words for Miko. "Not a word, kid."

_"How is old Hatchet doing, anyway? He still working on Synth-En?"_ the yellow and black asked with a concerned look. Bulkhead nodded, sobering up.

"He yelled at us for watching TV!" Miko complained after hearing Raf's translation. "Can you believe it? We weren't even that noisy!"

"Ratchet just needs a little rest," Raf said reasonably. "Hopefully Optimus could get him to sleep, er, recharge when he comes back from the reconnaissance with Arcee."

Bumblebee made a noise that sounded strangely like a snort, and returned his attention to the computer he was hooked up to. Several more Cybertronian codes were entered which promptly turned into binary codes. Raf watched the monitor carefully before typing in a few lines on his own computer. He said something that only Bumblebee seemed to understand, pointing out a few lines on his screen, and Bumblebee's responding bleeps made just as little sense to Bulkhead as it did to Miko.

Miko pretended to yawn. "How much longer will that take? I can think of at least a dozen different things that are much more fun."

"Uh..." Raf hesitated, not quite willing to stop their session just yet. Before he could continue, however, Bumblebee made a series of high-pitched bursts and disconnected himself. "You've finished it? Can I see?" The boy leaned forward only to be pushed back gently by his partner.

_"Not yet, Raf."_ Bumblebee's optics glittered mischievously as he gained to his feet.

He opened the door and poked out his head, doorwings flicking as he listened intently. Ratchet's continued grumbles and muttered curses from the control room could be picked up by the scout's well-tuned audials. His battlemask hid the grin on his mouthplates, but the playful glint in his optics was there for all to see. Bulkhead picked it up at once when the yellow scout returned inside with an angelic look.

"What are you scheming, Bumblebee?" he asked warily.

Bumblebee's faceplate was all but innocent. _"What makes you think I'm scheming?"_

"You've got that look on your faceplate again. It's been a while, but I know what that look means. It means; get the pit out of there before that sneaky processor of yours adds me into your hit list."

A series of fast-paced bleeps and twitching on his doorwings indicated that the scout was laughing. With optics that strongly resembled those of a kicked puppy, he placed a hand on his chest as if in pain and drooped his doorwings pitifully.

_"I_ _am_ _hurt, Bulk. You know I would never scheme to harm any of you,"_ he said.

The Wrecker snorted. "Nice try, kid. I almost believed you for a second there."

"Harm?" Raf asked, unsure if he had heard correctly.

Miko glanced up with a puzzled look as well, but Bulkhead simply waved them off. The human kids did not need to know what kind of mischiefs their young scout used to get into back home, all in the name of 'boosting moral'. Sure they boosted moral quite nicely in dour times and _sure_ they were fairly harmless compared to what those other, self-proclaimed _professionals_ were capable of. However, no prank was exactly 'harmless' to the recipients. While Bulkhead himself had not been stationed in Iacon Headquarters all the time, the other Wreckers who were there told him all sorts of tales that often made the green bot secretly glad that he was _not_ stationed there.

Bumblebee clicked, reclaiming Raf's attention. He pointed at the boy's laptop.

_"Raf, disconnect."_

"Er, okay?"

After making sure Raf had finished unhooking all the cables, Bumblebee reached down and tapped enter on his keyboard. The windows on the screen disappeared, leaving only one open. Messages flitted on the third monitor, and before anyone could read the messages–

"BUMBLEBEE!"

Ratchet's holler was followed by pounding footsteps. The yellow and black bot jumped to his pedes and collapsed into alt-mode, opening his door on the driver's seat.

_"Get in, Raf, quick!"_ he urged his human partner, who was frozen on the spot, unable to comprehend why Ratchet would immediately assume it was them or why the medic was thundering towards their way in the first place.

"Uh–"

He had hesitated too long. The door crashed open, revealing their resident Doctor of Doom.

"You–!"

Bumblebee did not wait to find out whatever expletives Ratchet had specially reserved for him. Revving loudly, he hit his accelerator and took off at once. His door shut down just in time to miss the wrench sailing by, scraping the yellow paint on its way. The Urbanna swerved around the 'innocent' bystanders and escaped the room through Ratchet's legs with speed and agility that would make every Formula-1 racers cry in jealousy. The medic did not even spare a glance at the others before hurtling out to the control room in alt-mode as well, sirens blaring on the way.

"GET BACK HERE YOU PRIMUS DAMNED, SCHEMING, CONNIVING, GLITCHED AF–"

Barely able to stand in his laughter, Bulkhead picked up the two stunned teenagers and transformed so they would safely end up in his back seats. By the time they had reached the control room, Ratchet was already returning through the entry way, having chased the scout all the way to the outside of the base. The ambulance was still ranting about a youngling with defective survival protocols and obnoxious color scheme who would spend half his time glitching around and the rest half pulling outright suicidal stunts.

"Come on, doc. 'Bee just wants you to take a break." Bulkhead tried to reason the enraged medic. He kept his distance as he allowed the humans out and transformed back.

"Oh, I will take a break, alright," Ratchet fumed as he reverted to his bipedal mode as well, "when I finish my work. A work which, I might add, will help you idiots much more than it will ever do me and would make faster progress if you scrapheaps would stop making a glitch of yourselves. I have enough on my hands as it is without you lot doing stupid things with absolutely no thoughts on the consequences, breaking my tools," – at this, Bulkhead visibly winced, – "or _bugging up what little progress I made!"_

He made a wild motion with yet another wrench he had kept in his subspace. Raf peered at the monitors being waved at inside Ratchet's lab and cringed.

Inside the lab, Ratchet's monitors that showed all his work progress were now filled with incredibly detailed sprites of, er, _bumblebees_.

They buzzed around in swarms, jumping between different monitors, crawling across the screen and sometimes 'sitting' on the chemical formulas and equations Ratchet had calculated. It could have looked like quite an entertaining screensaver if not for the fact that a simple click would not make them disappear. Ratchet snarled, jabbing several keys with ferocity and muttering something in Cybertronian that the human children would hopefully never find out the meaning of. Whatever the medic tried did nothing to the bees. If anything, the swarm seemed to grow with every command entered.

Ignoring the other two roaring with laughter, Raf quickly opened his laptop.

"Don't worry, Ratchet. I might be able to fix it. I'm sure it's not, uh, a malicious program. Bumblebee won't do anything, er, _harmful_..." His hands were soon flying over the keyboard. Ratchet glared at the laughing pair. Bulkhead choked off his mirth and raised both hands in defense.

"It was Bee all the way, Ratch. We had nothing to do with it," he said, more than willing to throw the scout in front of the proverbial bus.

Ratchet's scowl somehow deepened.

Thankfully, Optimus' voice requesting a Groundbridge saved the Wrecker from the death glare. Ratchet huffed and stomped back to the bridge operator. He wrenched down the lever with more force than necessary. The bridge powered up with blue glow and its characteristic roar.

Not long after appeared the forms of a red and blue semi-trailer truck and a blue motorcycle with Jack, who was picked up from his part-time job on the way back. Optimus transformed as he pulled to a stop while Arcee allowed Jack to get off before transforming herself. Her faceplate was full of exhaustion as she collapsed on an empty energon storage cube which the Autobots liked to use as impromptu chairs. Jack reached over and patted on his guardian's knee sympathetically. Ratchet spared them one glance and snapped up the lever, shutting down the bridge. Muttering darkly to himself, the medic disappeared into his med bay and soon returned with two cubes of energon for the exhausted pair.

"Thank you, Ratchet," Optimus said. He looked around, sensing something was off in the base. Being the leader he was, he twigged on to the problem at once. "Where is Bumblebee?"

Ratchet nearly cracked the cube he was giving Arcee. "On a perimeter run, or at least that's what he yelled back," he answered stiffly.

"Already? He was not scheduled to leave until another hour."

"He had a good reason to leave early," was the dry reply.

Bulkhead and Miko both snorted. Optimus raised an optic ridge. At the three questioning looks, Bulkhead thumbed towards the monitors still buzzing merrily with bees. Arcee started to crack up silently, shaking her head while Jack looked simply bewildered. Even Optimus appeared to be suppressing a smile.

One of the bees somehow found its way into the main monitors in the control room and did a strange dance before flitting back. Ratchet grumbled something incoherently and turned to Raf, who was still trying fix it.

"Rafael?"

"It's Cybertronian, I thought it would be, ah..." Raf trailed off, remembering Bumblebee's warning. He looked up at the still-steaming medic with an apologetic expression. "I think Bumblebee did something to stop anyone but himself from shutting the program without damaging your progress. In fact," he grimaced at his laptop, "I think every time I try the bees only get worse."

True, the bees seemed to have multiplied in number. Now there was only a fraction of the screen not yet covered by merrily buzzing and dancing bumblebees.

Ratchet bristled. "Of course he would have done that," he growled. "He would have _ensured_ that no one could shut it off, wouldn't he?" The medic spared a glance at his monitors before glaring at the entryway where he lost his prey. "Anymore _bees_ will make that wretched thing crash, losing all my progress and then my sanity."

"Your sanity has been non-existent for vorns," Bulkhead muttered under his breath.

"It won't crash, it's not, uh... never mind," Raf trailed off at the medic's faceplate. Wisely, he backed away from Ratchet's terminal in the off chance that it _did_ crash. He was starting to seriously wonder if he would still have an Autobot guardian by tomorrow morning.

Optimus laid a steadying hand on his old friend. "Perhaps you should take this opportunity to get some recharge until Bumblebee comes back and fixes your terminal, Ratchet," he suggested. "You have been pushing yourself too hard lately."

Ratchet shot his leader a withering look which Prime met with a steady gaze of his own. After a whole one Earth minute worth of staring match, Ratchet relented.

"_Fine,_" he huffed. "Wake me when that half-bit comes back." He turned to the quarters, grouching. "I am too old for this."

—§—

It was night time when Bumblebee finally snuck back to base. The yellow muscle car slowed down before fully entering the control room. He kept his stance low as he transformed, as if wary of any wrenches that might come hurtling at him, and scanned the spark signatures first. Bulkhead, who was halfway through his shift on monitor duty, chuckled softly at the sight.

"It's safe, kid. Ratchet isn't here. You managed to put him in recharge," he said.

Bumblebee vented in relief and stumbled in. His doorwings plucked up at the sight of his handiwork through Ratchet's lab.

"I would fix that before Doc Hatchet comes back online," the Wrecker intoned. "He made me take Raf with Miko back home so you can't use him as an excuse to escape." A wry smile tugged on his mouthplates.

Bumblebee groaned, burying his faceplate in his hands, doorwings drooping back. Drawing out his cable, he quickly moved to the lab. All the bumblebees vanished from the screen within ten seconds, leaving Ratchet's progress unaffected. Out of the corner of his optics, Bulkhead saw the younger bot emerge back out.

_"I am going to have to go to him, aren't I?"_

The Wrecker nodded, unable to keep the grin off his faceplate. "Yep. He should be online by now, wanna go check?"

Bumblebee pulled a face. _"Maybe later."_

The scout ambled towards a giant mirror and used it to pop out a dent on his lower back below where the door panels were. Then he twisted around to examine a long scratch on one of his doorwings. If he was Knock Out, such scratch would have made him cringe so badly that he would crumble down into a pile of scrapheap and never recover. Since Bumblebee was not Knock Out, he simply dismissed it with a light flick.

"Need help with that?" Bulkhead asked, reaching for a buffer.

_"Not now. I'll probably end up getting more of them later any..."_

He froze mid-sentence and whipped around with the most frightened look Bulkhead had ever seen on the scout's faceplate. Even the Unmaker himself would not have been able to get such look from the normally brave bot. His doorwings rose up high in panic and his large optics were diluted as he stared past the Wrecker. A terrifyingly familiar voice came from the hallway.

"Thank you, Bulkhead. I'll be taking it from here."

Bulkhead turned around as well and realised what had the scout make such perfect 'oh-scrap' face.

"Aaaand that's my cue to leave," Bulkhead said, edging away from the console.

Bumblebee snapped his helm back towards the green Autobot and stared with a mixture of disbelief and pleading. However, Bulkhead was not about to stand between the Hatchet and his prey.

"Get your puppy optics ready. You're gonna need it," he whispered as he passed by, knowing the scout would be able to hear him. He quickly turned away so he would not have to see those yellow doorwings droop down for the second time of the day. That did not stop him from getting a short message:

_Fine, but you're definitely on my hit list now._

Chuckling quietly to himself, the Wrecker slipped past their steaming medic and hoped that they wouldn't be short of one scout by midnight.

* * *

_(AN: So does anyone else think that among Team Prime, Bumblebee is the only one who can lie? Anyone? Just me?)_


End file.
